Awakening Fire
by TheWindDidIt
Summary: This story takes place after Donna tells The Doctor to find someone, so he does. A mysterious girl is eyeing him at a coffee shop and something feels off about her. The Doctor doesn't realize how bad things are. M for whump and later chapters.
1. Prologue

_Author's Notes__: I am quite new to writing stories and I would love feedback, no matter how harsh. I know this prologue is really short but I'm going to be updating as much as possible with my summer jobs permitting. _

_To be perfectly honest this is actually my first attempt at writing a story of any real length, and this is the first time I've posted something like this online. Before I've only ever written plays, essays, and poetry, so forgive me if this is horrid._

_Enjoy!_

Her eyes scanned over the information for the hundredth time, and as always they came to rest on the one decent photo that had been found of him. They had photos of all his faces of course, but this was the one she needed. This was the current face, and this was the face that everything depended on.

The van jostled underneath her, shifting the screen out of focus for a moment, and then they came to a stop. The guard to her left took the screen from her and she sighed inwardly as she waited for the inevitable. The backdoor of the van opened. The man that had opened the door came towards her and the guard on her right grabbed her shoulder to turn her towards him forcefully.

The man who opened the door grabbed her by the neck and stared into her eyes, then leaned forward. "There will be no mistakes on this one or _they_ will be the ones to suffer," he hissed into her ear. She clenched her jaw and glared in response. Then the man dragged her up and out of the van, into the dismal London day, whispering to her, "Their lives depend on you finishing the task at hand."

She remained silent as he released her. Once all the guards and the man were back within their black van and driving around a corner she turned and started towards the coffee shop across the crowded street. And as she walked away she murmured under her breath, "All the worlds will burn for the task at hand."


	2. Chapter 1

_**AN: **__Sorry this is taking so long. I know the prologue was really short and I am trying to remedy that with a good first chapter. Reviews are appreciated!_

_Disclaimer: I own nothing, not Doctor Who or its characters!_

Chapter 1: Coffee Shop Star Gazing

The words Donna had spoken a week ago were still ringing in The Doctor's ears. He had wanted her to come with him so badly, just so he could forget Rose, if but for a moment. Rose, who was the polar opposite of the commanding, loud Donna, who would have been _just_ a friend. He understood why she had said no, but part of him wanted to go back and find a way to convince her to come along in the TARDIS and travel the worlds and time and space with him. Though the very intelligent alien mind of his realized she was right.

"Promise me one thing though, Doctor," she had said, "That you'll find someone." He had told her – lied to her – that he didn't need anyone, but Donna was smarter than that. "I think sometimes you need somebody to stop you," she had told him, and she was right. That night with the Racnoss he had committed genocide to an alien race without blinking; he had been out of control without someone there to keep his rage from overpowering his compassion.

The Doctor's focus snapped back to the present when he heard the voice of his waitress. "Do you not like your coffee sir?" she asked, "Or are you just the contemplative type?" He gave her a confused look until he realized he hadn't even touched the coffee he had ordered upon arriving, which had been at least half an hour earlier. He fumbled for a response, but before he could ramble off a very legitimate reason about his not drinking the coffee, she had just smiled and walked away.

"Right, well, must be time to move to the next haunt when the staff starts calling me contemplative," he mumbled to himself, but he didn't move. He hadn't felt it earlier but now he did. Someone was watching him. He glanced over his cup at the other customers and his eyes stopped on a girl across the shop, in the corner.

She had a small laptop, and looked like any of the other college students in the shop: black cargo pants that fit well, a snug, long-sleeved, dark red top, a black back pack by her chair, and an eccentric, choppy, short cut of her flame red hair. But there was definitely something non-ordinary about this girl, and The Doctor couldn't figure it out. Not until she glanced up at him from her computer screen, did he see – or feel, rather – that there was something unnatural about her.

When he met her eyes he had to control himself to keep from gasping. None of the other people in the shop seemed to notice how piercing they were, or how deep, like they had seen the ages and lived through horrible and beautiful and impossible things. For a moment he stopped to wonder if that was how his companions felt when they had gazed into his eyes – when his guard was down and the Oncoming Storm took over. But the thought was fleeting, as he gazed, transfixed, at this girl. The Doctor realized she must be wearing contacts, because there was an odd sheen to the color of her eyes, like a light shining through a curtain. Then finally she broke the trance and looked back to her computer, and he couldn't tell, but he thought she looked a bit flushed, or maybe it was a trick of the light.

xxxxxxx

She had been watching him for nearly twenty minutes, and had just been wondering if he was even going to pretend to drink his coffee when the waitress walked over and asked him something along the same lines. He had just been staring off into the air when she had walked in, gotten a coffee, and grabbed the corner seat that was facing him. She had tossed her backpack down and gotten her laptop out and was doing an excellent job of watching, without being seen, within minutes. Though, he did make it rather easy, what with the attention he was paying to the pollen particles and dust in the air. Then he looked up, and their eyes met.

She couldn't look down, even though her training was screaming at her to break the gaze. His eyes were doe brown and in any other face they would have been unremarkable, but the depth of them trapped her. There was such loneliness in those eyes, that would like to break her heart. She felt as though she was falling through a vortex of time and space as she stared into the eyes of The Doctor. The Doctor: the man that she was supposed to be subtly tracking and watching, who had been to all of the stars in the heavens. Tracking. She cursed in her thoughts, and tore her eyes away from the eyes of the alien across the shop.

Well now her plan to be subtle was shot, and she needed to think up a new plan….fast. First she had to calm herself down though. She could feel her heart rate hammering and she thought she probably looked a bit flushed, and all of this just from his eyes! She glanced sidelong at The Doctor and saw that he was still watching her, apparently in a state of shock – for what reason she didn't know, but she could definitely use that. He was interested in her to say the least…that angle could work. She had her plan.

She deftly grabbed her backpack and put her computer into it in one motion as she stood. She weaved her way out of the shop and when she got to the door she turned and glanced back at The Doctor, giving him a meaningful look, as she pushed out into the street. She gave a small sigh of relief, because he had been standing up to follow as she had turned back around. Now it was just a game of cat and mouse, but did he realize the blood hounds were around the corner? She glared darkly at the black van as it pulled into an alley a few blocks down from where she was, as if it could read her mind. The trap was set it, and she was the mouse with the cat close behind – god help him.

XXXXXXX

He couldn't stop looking at her, even when she had torn her eyes from him. So the brief glance she gave him a few seconds later didn't escape his notice. Oh, there was something about this girl that intrigued him, and made him forget his sadness for a moment. He felt that familiar feeling in his gut, the one he got when he was about to do something that was probably not academically intelligent, but something so…human. He was going to look into this, talk to the girl follow her even, as long as the thrill would last. A brief thought about the possibility of a trap ran through his mind, but he dismissed it quickly by reasoning that even if it was, traps were fun. They were quite the challenge and he needed this blissful distraction.

So as he watched her fluidly pack her things and walk to the door he started to rise, just as she turned and stared into his eyes again. She was practically screaming for him to follow, and with eyes like hers and the look she had just given him, why, it would be blasphemous not to play her game. She pushed out into the stream of people and started a to weave through the lunchtime crowd, and he followed like a cat trailing a mouse.

She moved with such grace, but it seemed feral in a way, as if she was prepared to run at any moment. He was starting to wonder if he should just get back to the TARDIS when he saw a man grab her and haul her into an alley. She struggled but he overpowered her and he lost sight of her. He quickly moved to the alley and rushed in, to see her being dragged around a dumpster by a large man.

"Oi! You there, what's the idea with dragging a girl off into an alley?" he yelled at the man, who, upon hearing and seeing him, took off around a corner. The Doctor rushed around the dumpster to the girl to see if she was okay. She was against the alley wall, and breathing heavily, but she looked less scared than he would have thought a girl in the situation should. In fact, she looked angry and determined, and there was something closed off about her eyes now.

Even though some part of his mind realized he should probably turn tail and run he still had to make sure this girl wasn't hurt. "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" was out of his lips before he even got through thinking about running.

The girl looked up at him then, and that look scared him more than he liked to think, because he knew that look, and he was sure he had looked like that before, just before he had sacrificed his entire race to annihilate the Daleks. It was painful resignation and regret, with flashes of fierce desire for there to be another way, all wrapped into one and pooling in those eyes. She closed her eyes then and said, "I'm okay, but you aren't and they aren't, so I wont be for long," and then she moved, faster than he had expected possible.

In one graceful movement the girl had slammed The Doctor's head and back into the wall and the she was in front of him. She pulled something from her pocket as several men came up behind her, one of them was the one that had pulled her into the alley, and they were all built like bodyguards. Then she activated whatever was in her hand and some gas sprayed out into his nose and mouth and everything went fuzzy. He felt himself pitch forward as his vision failed and his hearts slowed, but just before he lost himself in the darkness he thought he heard a whispered, "I'm sorry," from the girl. But then he was slipping and he couldn't remember who _she_ was or why it mattered, and then he let unconsciousness claim him completely.

XXXXXXX

She walked quickly and when she came to the alley the van had pulled into she was unsurprised by one of the guards grabbing her. She made it look like a struggle as he lead her into the alley. He wore a grim look and he hastily spoke as he dragged her farther away from the street, "He's following you. Damien is quite unhappy and says that, even if you pull this off, there will be consequences for your mistakes and stupidity. What the hell happened in the shop! What went wrong with the plan?"

As they neared a dumpster she quickly whispered to the guard, "He saw me, and something happened when our eyes locked, I couldn't help it! I knew I couldn't play it off so I decided to change the game. I lead him here by baiting him, and it's working as I'm sure you figured out, so shove off and pretend you are going to rob me or something, because he's coming around that corner any moment!"

The fierceness in her voice nearly made the guard step away, but then he saw The Doctor come around the corner so he quickly pushed her behind the dumpster and whispered in her ear, "This better work girl, or it's all our arses." Then The Doctor was yelling and the guard ran off around the corner.

As The Doctor neared her she wanted to yell at him to run, but then she couldn't and he was inquiring about how she was and she knew she was giving it away with her eyes. She looked at him and she could tell he knew then that he was in a bad place, but she answered anyways, "I'm okay, but you aren't and they aren't, so I wont be for long."

Then she made her move: twisting to the side and pushing off the wall, while simultaneously grabbing and turning the doctor, and then slamming him into the wall. He hit with more force than she had intended, and she winced – sure that he was going to have a nasty bump on the back of his head. She pulled the knockout gas – made especially for this human-like alien's anatomy they'd told her, whatever that meant – and then activated it. It worked quickly and he fell forward onto her as the guards who had gathered in a semicircle behind her came towards them. Before the guards got to them, however, she whispered brokenly into his ear, "I'm sorry," though she knew he would not remember her saying it when he woke.

She held him up and looked into his eyes. She watched consciousness slide from them as they shut, and then the guards were there. They picked him up and put him in the van and she followed. The last thing she saw before the blindfold was pulled over her eyes was his sleeping face, and then nothing but darkness.


	3. Chapter 2

_**AN:**__ This chapter came to me a bit quicker, but I warn you there's a little violence and the next few chapters will hold their fair share of whump. I would really love it if I got some more reviews (the two so far though are appreciated). I would honestly love some criticism and thoughts!_

_Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who…still._

Chapter 2: The Prisoner

The first thing The Doctor thought, as the fog of sleep lifted, was that he either had just been to a one of the wildest parties of all his incarnations, or he was in trouble. Of course, the later was far more likely, since the last thing he could clearly remember was something about a strange girl in a coffee shop. No matter how he looked at it he couldn't make coffee shop and odd girl equal out to a party that would leave him feeling like this.

Speaking of, what was _this_ that he was feeling? Well his head definitely hurt, but it was originating from the back of his head, and felt more like he had been struck than anything else. Then there was this sleep, which didn't feel like the passing-out-after-a-party kind of sleep. He felt groggy and muddled, and he never felt muddled! Then flashes started coming back and he groaned when the entire picture was finally reassembled in his mind's eye.

The image of the girl in the coffee shop, with the strange and captivating eyes, that he had blindly followed straight into a trap played across his mind. His head was really starting to ache and he reached back to see if there was a bump, but he couldn't seem to reach back at all. For a moment his brain sputtered as it tried to figure out what wasn't working, then it hit him.

The Doctor – The Oncoming Storm, Last of the Time Lords, Defender of Worlds – was chained to a table. Bloody Fantastic. He also came to the realization that he still had his eyes closed. This was not a good morning…if it even was morning, now that was a thought. He had no idea what time it was, or where he was, or more importantly: _why_ he was wherever he was. In any case he decided opening his eyes would probably be a good first step in finding answers to some of the more important inquiries floating around in his head. So he cracked them open and let his eyes adjust to the florescent lighting. What he saw was not exactly what he was expecting.

He was on his stomach on a cushioned table that looked like it had been in a clinic at some point. The walls were made of old stone, as if he was in some underground room of an old castle. The section of the room he was in had a tiled floor and cabinets and looked like it served the purpose of a med-bay. Through the archway in front of him he could see what looked like a small library. There was a circular table in the center and there were faded rugs on the ground and books everywhere. The table and two of the three chairs were filled with books and papers that seemed to be spilling over the sides, like water boiling over. It looked like there were rooms to the sides of the library but he couldn't see them from where he was.

And he was chained to this medical table, though he figured they probably wouldn't be dissecting him, at least, because they would have put him on his back for that. There was a shiny metal bracelet around each of his wrists that was clipped onto a ring attached to the table on either side. Just as he was about to test how strong the chains were he heard a voice behind him.

"You won't break them," said a female voice, "the people who want you told us you were stronger than you looked. They're made of Titanium, and the links are made of some particular metal called Inconel that is used for industrial joints and break points."

At the sound of her voice The Doctor had jumped considerably, and then as she spoke about the chains he sighed resignedly. There was no way – even with Time Lord strength – that he was busting out of these chains. He wondered how long she had known he was awake, and he wanted to see her, to be sure it was the same girl as before. He started again when she pressed something cool to the back of his head. The throbbing jumped up a notch, but slowly receded with the cool pressure. She was fixing him up…this didn't bode well.

His voice cracked when he first started to speak, from ill use, but then he coughed and went on, "You…were the girl from the coffee shop, yeah?" He hadn't heard her say but one sentence earlier so he couldn't quite be sure.

She paused then and watched him try and turn his head to see her before she answered. "Yes, I'm the girl from the coffee shop," she said with what sounded like regret…or maybe it was reproach – he couldn't tell without seeing her.

"Don't you mean you're the girl who led me into a trap and kidnapped me so that you could sell me. And the buyers sound like they know enough about me for to have captured me themselves. So the real question is why would they waste the money and use you?" he asked in a rush. There was a bit more venom in his questions than he had intended, but this girl had kidnapped him after all.

The venom in his voice made her draw back slightly, and she was about to shoot off a bitingly sarcastic comment when she heard the loud tone through the speakers. She had to tell him quickly, before the guards got there. She took the ice pack away and put it in the sink behind her then she went around to the front of the table and sank down to be eye level with The Doctor.

She stared into his eyes and he stared back, with much the same shock as when he had first seen her in the shop, though this time it was probably because she was no longer wearing contacts. Her eyes were like fire flickering on golden fabric. They looked like someone had melted down a brick of gold and poured it into her irises. They were beautiful and piercing, yet still so deep and haunting. The Doctor forced himself to pay more attention to her voice than her eyes, at least while she was speaking.

She spoke quickly and seriously, "Do us a favor? Don't fight and don't be witty." Then she was flitting quickly into the library and to the left through – The Doctor assumed – one of the unseen rooms. Something shiny caught his eye as she hurried away, but then she was gone and it probably wasn't important anyway.

He was slightly confused by the way she had phrased her request. The way she emphasized _us_ and the anxiety in her features weren't right. It was as if she was in harm's way if he did something wrong…but that would be very strange. She was the one that had led him to those men in the alley. She had been the one to bait him, trap him, knock him out, and take him. He must be over analyzing again, and either way it didn't matter because at that moment two of the bodyguards – or whatever they were – walked in.

They each went to one of his arms and used some sort of magnetic key or something – he didn't get a very good look at it – to unchain his wrists. They unceremoniously hoisted him up and linked the manacles again behind his back. At this point one of the guards turned and spoke to him, while the other eyed him suspiciously, "You put up a fight and it won't matter what the buyers said about keeping you intact. Damien likes his prisoners to know their place." Then he was being hauled into the library, through a short hall to the left and into a kitchen / living area. He wanted to stop and get his bearings, but all he got was a quick look at the same stonewalls and worn rugs before he was shoved out a door on the far side of the room and into a corridor. The door behind him sealed itself quickly and then he was being marched along out to a main hallway and then past some large oak doors into a remodeled hall of some kind.

This definitely did not bode well. This room confirmed the Doctor's earlier suspicions, about the reason for his being patched up. The ceiling was low and had chains hanging from it in several places, as well as anchors for the titanium bracelets on his wrists on the rough stone walls at varying heights. There were also some very ominous cabinets and tables that held devices that were definitely not just some random tools for gardening. This was a torture chamber. The only reason they were fixing him up was so that he could withstand torture and not be killed by it. "Fine bloody mess you've gotten yourself into this time mate," The Doctor mumbled to himself quietly.

Luckily the guards didn't hear him since they were too busy roughly shoving him down to his knees near the right side wall, about 30 feet from the a large luxurious chair. The chair was currently vacant, but a handsome blonde man, who was probably just an inch shorter than him, was standing in front of it. He had an expensive suit on and he did not look happy. This must be Damien, because he had the air of someone in charge, and he had that glint in his eye that made one shiver.

It wasn't until then that The Doctor realized he wasn't the one that was being subjected to the glare he was giving. This Damien character was staring at someone straight in front of him who was about 10 feet from him and on the ground. It was the girl. So this must be her boss, and they must have some strange hierarchy or protocol the Doctor thought. Then everything changed, and the pieces started to fall into place in The Doctor's mind.

Damien stalked forward and hissed angrily at the girl, "You almost ruined the plan, and all you can say is you couldn't look away!" He then grabbed her by the hair and pulled backwards so that she was staring up at him. "You better give me a better reason than that, pet," he practically spit.

She met his eyes with hatred and then said with venom, "Actually, yeah, I do have a better reason. How 'bout this one: I thought he was prettier than you, thought I might like to switch masters for a day or two, see if I like him better."

The response was almost immediate. Damien let go of her hair and viciously backhanded her and she fell sideways slightly. It was then that The Doctor saw something shiny on the girl's wrists: bracelets that looked just like his. Hers were anchored to the ground on either side of her. She was as much a prisoner as he was, and she was just as alone.

XXXXXXX

She had watched The Doctor wake up and had made sure his head wasn't in too bad of shape. Then the guards were coming and she needed to tell him not to do something stupid. After that she had quickly run to the door. They would only hurt her worse if she made them come find her, and with Damien in the state he had been on the drive back she figured she should save her strength.

Once she was secured in the hall in front of Damien's throne – as she had come to think of it – the King himself had stormed in. With one look she knew this was going to be a bad one. He was fuming and pacing. Usually the pacing didn't start until much later in the routine. She started to worry about the others and The Doctor. Wait…she couldn't already be worrying about The Doctor! She didn't know him, and he seemed pretty displeased with her at the moment, though she couldn't blame him. It's her fault that he's a prisoner.

Her thoughts were cut short by Damien, who was stalking towards her. "What. Went. Wrong?" was all he could bite out. She hadn't seen him this mad in a long while, maybe not since her last escape attempt. The thought of that sent a shiver down her spine. That was a beating she didn't need to be remembering at the moment.

Well hell be damned if she was going to beg, she thought, as she started to reply, "Like I said, I didn't mean to! He looked up and then I couldn't stop looking at his eyes. It was like he hypnotized…" SMACK.

Damien cut her off sharply with a slap that sent her reeling, though; she still managed not to cry out. Then Damien went back to pacing and the girl heard the sounds of the guards and The Doctor coming into the hall. Well, now The Doctor would figure out what the hell was going on at least. She had a feeling he wasn't often left in the dark and that this situation was probably driving him mad.

Damien started in on her again once the "audience" was seated – he did have a flare for the dramatic – and he didn't waste much time on prologue. "You almost ruined the plan, and all you can say is you couldn't look away!" he inquired angrily. Then he was grabbing her hair to force her to look into his eyes. "You better give me a better reason than that, pet," he spat out.

She despised when he called her pet. Out of all the pains he could cause her that was one of the worst. She could take the physical pain – and she had for so long – but he knew how to mess with her mind. She glared up at him with all the hatred she could muster and then spat back, "Actually, yeah, I do have a better reason. How 'bout this one: I thought he was prettier than you, thought I might like to switch masters for a day or two, see if I like him better."

She knew it was stupid. She also knew it was going to result in pain. She also knew she should be saving her strength and not antagonizing Damien, but the look on his face right before he struck her was priceless. The blow had her falling slightly to the side and feeling a pretty good amount of pain through her jaw. That one was definitely going to swell up nice and colorful.

She got back up on her knees and then spared a look back at The Doctor, and what she saw took her breath away. He had figured it out all right. She could see understanding and sorrow and forgiveness in his eyes, along with anger, which seemed to be directed solely towards Damien at the moment. Then she started to feel it.

The blurring of reality and that push inside her head, was surfacing. It was like fire burning her eyes and mind. This pain, which had been occurring more and more frequently as she aged, which made her so _special_. The pain, which brought with it flashes of things that had never happened, but that always ended up true, and made her mind spin. The pain, which also seemed to let her catch glimpses into the minds around her and see what they kept hidden behind their eyes.

She started to writhe against the fire inside her, but before it started to subside the power reached out and touched The Doctor, just for a moment and she heard his mind. "She's as much a prisoner as I am, and she's just as alone," he thought with an emotion she couldn't define. There was pain and loss and something else, but she couldn't focus on it. The tendril of awareness retreated back to her and then – as the power imploded back into her – she blacked out.


End file.
